Veterans Spotlight: Micco veteran member of most traveled engineer unit of WW II

MICCO — For Bill VanLuyn, 86, his diploma from Creston High School in Grand Rapids, Mich., and his draft notice came almost simultaneously in 1943.

"They sent me to Camp Ellis near Peoria, Ill., to take engineer basic," said VanLuyn. He learned to build bridges.

VanLuyn was assigned to Company B, 1303 Army Engineer General Service Regiment, a type of unit that was supposed to work far behind the lines building roads, bridges, camps, hospitals and other infrastructure. However, that's not what happened to VanLuyn and the 1303. Before the war ended, they would fight in both European and Pacific Theaters and become the most traveled engineer unit of World War II.

In Europe, the 1303 was assigned to Gen. George Patton's Third Army. Patton was charging his tanks across Europe and there were a lot of rivers and streams to be crossed, but the bridges had been destroyed by the retreating Germans. Patton sent B Company in front of his tanks to ensure they could cross the obstacles.

"The Germans wouldn't always blow up the bridges right away," said VanLuyn. "Sometimes, they would wait until we started checking a bridge and then open up on it and us with their 88s. It was scary! They didn't want us to succeed because they knew the tanks were coming next."

During the Battle of the Bulge, B Company served as infantry, helping defend Luxembourg City. They dug in on Christmas Day. Patton admired the engineers' combative spirit. They earned the name "Patton's Bridge Builders," and Patton called L Company "the mighty midgets." VanLuyn said L Company was composed of the shortest men in the regiment.

The last bridge the unit built in Europe was over the Rhine River. It was a timber bridge, 30 feet wide, 1,000 feet long and 52 feet above the river.

Patton told the men their efforts earned them the right to be among the first to go home, but higher authority decided otherwise and sent the unit to Gen. Douglas MacArthur in the Pacific. They went ashore at Yokohama, Japan, and were camped in the Olympic Stadium in Tokyo. Their first mission was to rehabilitate the Dai Ichi Building, which became MacArthur's headquarters.

VanLuyn was a patient in the same hospital to which Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo was brought after he tried to commit suicide. "My buddy and I convinced the guards to let us peek in the door of his room. He was there, big mustache and all. They were treating him well." Tojo was tried and hung for war crimes.

Discharged in 1946, he went to college, got a job with a furniture company and married Sally Walsh. The couple had five children. The couple retired to Micco in 1985.